An Ancient Strife

by Michael Phillips

“All right, then . . . that’s fine. Good-bye, Paddy.”

  “Good-bye, Bill.”

  Three

  As the summer passed and his mother’s condition steadily improved—and without any apparent break in Scotland Yard’s investigation into the Hamilton murder—Andrew’s thoughts again turned toward the north. Perhaps it was time he resumed his long-planned summer tour of Scotland, which had been interrupted first by his mother’s stroke and then by Paddy’s frantic telephone call from Ireland.

  He couldn’t shake the feeling that it was important to complete his “up close and personal” exploration before the summer recess ended and he had to return to London for the fall. It would help him resolve in his own mind some of the issues he was sure to face when Commons resumed in November, especially those related to the role of Scotland’s Parliament and the questions of greater Scottish autonomy that the SNP was certain to lobby for.

  He was also eager to visit several sites he hoped would further his own personal search into his family’s roots, as well as shed additional light on some of the historical periods he had been researching. He had already devoted much of the past eight weeks at home delving more deeply into his family’s past, drawing on the wealth of information available to him in the library at Derwenthwaite, with frequent inquiries to the Society of Genealogists on Goswell Road in London.

  A number of visits to Duncan MacRanald’s cottage, with tea and oatcakes and a good dose of the Scotsman’s stories, had whetted his appetite all the more.

  “I say, Dad,” he mentioned one morning at breakfast, “would you like to ride over to Duncan’s with me today? I’m returning a book and want to borrow another.”

  “With pleasure, son . . . sounds splendid.”

  “Cook baked some shortbread yesterday aft . . . aft . . . afternoon,” said Lady Trentham. “I’ll . . . have her make up a . . . a box for Duncan for you to take . . . to him.”

  By ten o’clock the two men were at the stables saddling two of their favorite mounts—a light bay Danish Warmblood and a black three-year-old Furioso—and soon struck out over the hills toward Bewaldeth Crag in the warm summer morning.

  “Greetings to the baith o’ ye!” exclaimed Duncan MacRanald from the doorway of his stone shearing shed as they rode up twenty minutes later. A wide grin creased the granite face under the wild mop of white hair as the old sheepherder strode out to meet them, his confident gait belying his years. Behind him trotted a shaggy black-and-white border collie. She eyed the visitors with interest but did not bother to bark, for these two men were well known at the cottage.

  “Good morning, Duncan,” returned Mr. Trentham. “A fine day, wouldn’t you say?”

  “’Tis indeed, though a wee bit warm fer my tastes. Can ye bide fer a wee drap o’ tea?”

  “Always, Duncan, my friend!” answered Andrew’s father. “It’s nearly time for elevenses anyway. And we brought shortbread, compliments of my wife.” He dismounted and handed the package to the Scot while he and Andrew saw to their mounts.

  “An’ hoo is the dear lady?” asked Duncan, leading them inside.

  “Recovering wonderfully,” replied Trentham. “We still don’t know how complete will be the use of her one arm, but her spirits are good.”

  “I’m aye glad t’ hear it.”

  Duncan ambled to the stove and put water on to boil. In the winter, he made his tea in an iron kettle over the peat fire in the fireplace. On warm summer days such as this, he consented to use the small electric cook stove Andrew had insisted on installing—though he still refused to consider the possibility of a microwave.

  “Hoo goes the readin,’ lad?” he said, noting the volumes Andrew had toted into the cottage.

  “Fine, Duncan. I’m bringing back the book about the expansion of Christianity in Scotland in the seventh century. I’m ready to move on. But I’m growing more and more curious about something more recent.”

  “What’s that, laddie?”

  “Scottish independence . . . when was it lost?”

  “If ye’re still readin’ in the seventh century,” chuckled Duncan, “ye haena even gotten t’ where Scotland’s a nation at all. Dinna ferget—‘twas jist tribes battlin’ amongst themselves back then, the Picts an’ Scots an’ the rest o’ them. An’ noo ye’re jumpin’ ahead t’ the loss o’ oor national freedom—‘tis a bit of a leap.”

  “I’ll read how it all began later,” said Andrew. “But right now I want to know how it was lost.”

  “Surely ye studied yer history, lad. Dinna they teach ye aboot sich things in yer English schools?”

  Andrew laughed. “I know, the Act of Union in 1707,” he said, “the creation of the United Kingdom. But why . . . why did Scotland agree to join with England in the first place? What led up to it? What was the real story?”

  Duncan took a seat and was quiet some moments before answering. A pensive silence settled over the cottage.

  “Do ye mind,” he began at length, “back when I told ye that t’ unnerstan’ the Scot, ’twas t’ Glencoe ye maun gae.”

  “I remember it well,” replied Andrew. “The story of Ginevra and Brochan started me on all this, leading me back to the Wanderer and then forward through Scottish history on up to Columba’s time.”1

  “In the same way,” Duncan went on, “gien it’s the Scot’s thirst fer freedom from England ye’re wantin’ t’ unnerstan’, ’tis t’ Bannockburn an’ Culloden ye maun gae. There’s more than four hundred years atween the twa—years o’ strife atween the English and the Scots that tell the story o’ liberty won and liberty lost. ’Tis what I call the ancient strife o’ Caledonia.”

  “Bannockburn and Culloden,” repeated Andrew thoughtfully.

  “Ay—the beginning an’ end o’ Scottish freedom.”

  Andrew nodded. “Were Gordons involved?” he asked.

  “Ay, they were,” replied Duncan.

  “Our own ancestors?” said Andrew, glancing toward his father, then back at Duncan.

  “It wouldna surprise me,” answered the Scot.

  As Andrew and his father rode back across the rolling Cumbrian hillside an hour later, both were thoughtful, reflecting quietly and inwardly on Duncan’s words. Little conversation passed between them.

  They arrived back at the Hall and parted, each still engrossed in his own private pensive mood. Andrew slowly moved toward the stairs with the vague idea of walking up to the library to look up the two events Duncan had mentioned.

  He paused at the gallery, then stopped to note once again the portrait of the kilted Highlander that had so fascinated him when he first discovered it not many months ago. He took in the stoic expression, the green-and-black Gordon tartan, then at last the name on the brass plate beneath it: Kendrick Gordon, Earl of Cliffrose.

  Who was this man? Andrew wondered yet again. What was he like . . . what might be his relation to the Lady Gordon of his own ancestry who had migrated to Cumbria in 1866 to marry his own great-great-grandfather John Trentham? Might this very portrait have come from Scotland in that year with Lady Fayth?

  For a long minute or two, Andrew continued to reflect upon the old face.

  What was significant about that date beneath his name? Why did it seem familiar? Was it something Duncan had mentioned?

  Andrew heard his father’s footsteps ascending the stairs behind him. He turned.

  “Still puzzling over the old Highlander, eh, my boy?”

  Andrew nodded with a smile. “Ever since I first noticed this portrait,” he said, “I’ve been haunted by the look in those eyes. The old fellow seems to have a story to tell, a story that mustn’t be forgotten.”

  Harland Trentham drew alongside Andrew and paused to look up at the figure gazing silently down on them from the wall.

  “I see what you mean,” he said. “The eyes are unusually alive for a portrait, aren’t they? As if they were trying to speak out over the centuries.”

  “That’s it exactly, Dad,” rejoined Andrew. “Do you recognize that da
te underneath?”

  “Which one?”

  “1746.”

  “It does have a familiar sound, now that you mention it. Something important happened then.”

  Andrew nodded. “But I’ve not been able to quite put my finger on it.”

  “Why don’t you look it up in the Epitome?”

  “Great idea!”

  Already Andrew was off for the stairs, continuing his way up to the library on the second floor.

  Four

  Paddy Rawlings, journalist and amateur private investigator, had not been expecting a return call in regard to her request quite so soon.

  “Hey, Paddy, guess what?” said Bill without benefit of additional greeting the moment she answered the phone. “Your friend is staying at the Auckland Towers, just like you thought.”

  “No kidding!” replied Paddy excitedly. “How’d you find out?”

  “Believe it or not, he is registered using his own name, just backwards. For some reason, on a whim as I was walking up to the counter, I thought of it. So I just asked if they had either a Mr. Reardon or a Mr. Larne registered. And the fellow replied, ‘Why yes, sir. We have an R. Larne with us.’”

  “Good work, Bill!” exclaimed Paddy. “And he is still there?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Then we’ve got to notify Scotland Yard—”

  Paddy paused.

  “No, wait,” she went on. “Bill, you’ve got to see what he’s up to first.”

  “What do you mean up to? He’s just at the hotel.”

  “But what’s he doing in Auckland?” persisted Paddy. “I’ve got to find out. Bill, you’ve got to trail him . . . follow him.”

  “What—you’ve got to be kidding! Asking if a man is registered at a hotel is one thing. Running out, hailing a taxi, and crying, ‘Follow that cab!’ is something else. That James Bond stuff just isn’t me!”

  “You can do it, Bill! Besides . . . we’ve got no choice. I can’t just fly down there. It would take me a week or more to arrange.”

  “Not that I wouldn’t love to see you, but even if you were here, what could you do?”

  “I’d follow him and find out what he’s up to.”

  “You’re saying you could actually do that?”

  “Of course. It just takes a little daring. That’s how I located the Coronation Stone.”

  “By following Reardon?”

  “All the way to Ireland. I even cut my hair and put on a disguise.”

  “So you are becoming a sleuth! I don’t know, Paddy—that kind of stuff is dangerous. I’m a photographer, not a PI.”

  “Come on, Bill. I’ve got to know. Reardon could be the key to everything.”

  The line was silent for just a minute. Paddy realized she was chewing on a fingernail. Then Bill’s voice came back on the line.

  “Give me a night to sleep on it.”

  Five

  Andrew stood in front of several rows of books, scanning the titles on their spines. He spotted the one he had been looking for, Ploetz’s Epitome of History, then scanned through the timeline history of dates to 1745–46. There his eyes fell on the entry “Second Jacobite Rebellion.”

  Of course. Now he remembered . . . the dispute over the rightful heirs to the British monarchy. Old Alisdair MacIain of Glencoe—fiercely loyal to the ancient Stewart dynasty of the early Jameses and Mary Queen of Scots—had been murdered along with most of his village both for his Jacobite sympathies and his fierce Highland independence.

  Just thinking of the story sent a poignant shiver running down Andrew’s back. It formed the backdrop for the first story Duncan had told him, the story that had captured his heart and piqued his interest in the story of the northlands. His own story, as he was coming to realize.

  But that had been back in 1692, half a century earlier than the dates he was interested in. Then had come the Act of Union in 1707—and Andrew knew from his Eton history lessons there had been considerable bitterness in the north over that.

  Did the date on the portrait mean that Kendrick Gordon had some connection to the Jacobites? Was that the year the portrait had been painted? And how did the portrait wind up here? If it had come with Lady Fayth in 1866, what was her connection to Kendrick Gordon of Cliffrose?

  Andrew replaced the Epitome and fell to thinking. As he walked about the library he attempted to dredge up memories about the Jacobites from Duncan’s tales and his school history lessons.

  His recollections of the strange group were hazy. MacIain of Glencoe had been an early Scots Jacobite. But were all the Jacobites Scots? It seemed that there might have been Jacobites in France and England too. . . .

  Andrew continued to scan the shelves. A minute or two later he took down another thick volume, this one entitled, A History of Clan Gordon. He sat down beneath the tall window in his favorite reading chair in the library, switched on the lamp beside him, opened the large book in his lap, then turned to the table of contents.

  It required but a few seconds for him to locate what he wanted: “Clan Gordon and the Jacobite Rebellions.”

  He turned to the page indicated and immediately began to read.

  1. These stories can be found in Caledonia: Legend of the Celtic Stone.

  3

  Legacy of the Kilted Highlander

  AD 1746

  One

  THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL SCOTLAND,

  SPRING 1715

  A thick fog had descended during the night. The airy mist now hovered like a shroud over the land, producing a silent dripping cascade off the tip of each leaf and branch and blade of grass in the Scottish Highlands.

  From every fence rail, every cow’s nose, every goat’s horn, every pig’s tail, every sparrow’s wing, and from every strand of every sheep’s woolly coat the drizzle fell, for the atmosphere hung heavy with the moist dews of heaven.

  A solitary woman made her way slowly through the thick morning, breathing the wet air deeply into her lungs. The dampness and the spring chill felt good on her flushed face.

  Behind her, the smell of peat smoke drifted from two or three chimneys of the massive stone edifice that was her home. But no smoke could be seen. The instant it reached the cool air, all evidence of fire below disappeared as smoke and fog mingled in one filmy mass of whiteness.

  That the walker was in a woman’s way was obvious from her somewhat uneven gait. The fact should have made her happy. She had already carried this child months longer than any of the three she had lost before birth. She well knew this might be her only chance. The midwife Sarah MacGregor had pronounced the likelihood good for a normal delivery.

  But Aileana Gordon, mistress of Cliffrose, walked with tears of apprehension rather than joy slowly falling down her weathered, stately cheeks.

  She had awakened before dawn from a terrifying apparition. Her tongue was silent, not even able to scream out in the night. She started up from her bed in a cold sweat, panting heavily. Obscure images filled her with dread—claymores dripping with blood, torn bodies and red-drenched tartans lying in heaps as far as the eye could see. Even as her wide eyes stared into the blackness and she gradually came to herself, she could not rid her brain of the visions. What horror could the awful sight portend?

  She eased back, gradually calming, and continued to lie for more than an hour. But sleep did not return. The deathly ghosts of her vision would not go away. Finally she rose, dressed warmly, and went out into the dawn.

  She had always tended to deny the visions that sometimes came to her, considering them more a curse than a gift. Her grandmother, distantly related to Ginevra MacIain of Glencoe, though she did not know it, was said to possess the second sight, and some maintained it visited alternate generations. As a young woman, Aileana had once prayed that God would give her eyes to see what was important in life. Were the visions that sometimes came to her His answer . . . or simply a reminder of her Highland heritage, which seemed to bestow such mystical abilities in its children from time to time? She woul
d never know.

  But there was no denying that she occasionally foresaw with uncommon clarity sights that chilled her soul. She had walked through the snow to sit with Sally MacKenzie three winters ago, knowing in her heart that the woman’s husband would not return from the blizzard then blanketing the Highlands. The poor man had never been seen again. And just months ago she had gone with Sarah to help with Eliza Munro’s delivery, knowing that the child would be stillborn and that Eliza would need the comforting of one who had suffered a similar loss.

  Women often sensed things, she told herself. Everyone had dreams. All brains spun out imaginative fancies. Her intuition was nothing to be wondered at.

  She walked away from the castle, shivering not from dawn’s chill but from the sight that refused to leave her mind’s eye—the remote and lonely plain, wet, boggy, and cold, overspread with the silence of death.

  Unconsciously her palm sought her bulging stomach as she went, as if to protect the infant within her from whatever harm life might try to bring into its path. With her other hand, large and callused, she pulled the woolen plaid more tightly around her broad and muscular shoulders.

  The woman who walked alone in the morning called Aileana—whose name meant from the green meadow—was one whom the men and women of the region knew as Lady Gordon.

  There were Forbeses on her mother’s side who had risen high. One of her cousins was on his way even now to becoming one of Scotland’s most influential men. But cleavage in the family fortunes had been sharp, and none of it had come to her mother.

  The former Aileana MacPherson was thus no aristocrat by birth. She was the third of five children born to a poor MacPherson who took a poor Forbes woman for his wife, then raised their family in a small glen to the west. For most of her first twelve years, no tongue but ancient Gaelic had sounded in young Aileana’s ears. But her intelligence had always been as remarkable as her intuition, and she had quickly picked up that unique Scots form of the English tongue which every year encroached more and more from Lowland Scotland toward the north and west. She could now speak comfortably with Highland commoner and English lord alike.